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not feed guests with that which has been taken away to enrich another's store." |
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"None can take" Alinor began, bristling, but Ian laid his hand over hers. |
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"Are you trying to insult me, Robert?" he asked, grinning. "I never knew you to be so unkind or to add shame to a man already stricken down. Just because I fell victim to a child's trick and scraped my knee" |
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"No," Leicester drawled, "I do not think a scraped knee, nor a broken one either, could hold you back from guarding your ownexcept against one single force. I have heardfrom a good and reliable sourcethat the king will demand a thirteenth of our goods when he comes again to England." |
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Not only the high table fell silent but the tables at which the vassals and castellans sat also. As the words were whispered to the lower tables, farther and farther away down the hall, silence fell upon them also. This touched every man, down to the serfs, who were not present but would ultimately pay for all. The eyes of the silent faces were not turned toward Leicester, who sat three places down from Ian on the left of his own wife, who followed Lord Llewelyn and Joan in the seating, according to protocol. Everyone looked toward the Earl of Salisbury, who sat at Alinor's right hand. |
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He shrugged. "I cannot deny there was some talk of it. What was decided, I do not know. My wife sent me an urgent message that I must come home." |
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"I was very ill," Lady Salisbury's whining voice confirmed from her husband's side. "I had such beatings of the heart, such pains of the eyes and dizziness of the head that I could not lift myself from my pillow." |
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Alinor did not doubt that Salisbury had received such a letter. Probably he had received one exactly like that twice or thrice a week the entire period of his absence. Perhaps, Alinor thought, with a flash of amusement, she had overestimated Salisbury's good nature. It would be |
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